Telfer-trained treble at Addington and Alexandra Park

By Michael Guerin

Another week, another stunner from Stonewall Stud.

Only this time there were three of them and they might all be open class horses in the making.

Just last Friday, Secret Beach scored one of the most remarkable lower class wins in a few seasons when he sat three wide the entire race to win at Cambridge.

Fast forward seven days and Team Telfer trebled down on that when Tact Teva and J T Boe were huge winners at Addington while their three-year-old filly Ride The Waves looked a Group 1 winner in waiting when she won the Woodlands Stud Silk Road Final at Alexandra Park.

Co-trainer Steve Telfer had suggested she was an Oaks filly after her win two weeks ago and she was even better on Friday, losing a mid-race lead attack that should have left her vulnerable but she still won with plenty in hand.

At Addington the stable run by Steve’s sister Amanda surprised nobody with their impressive double, Amanda having declared her confidence on HRNZ.CO.NZ on Friday morning.

But it was hard to predict the pair would win quite some convincingly.

Tact Teva was three wide, albeit with cover, for much of the last lap yet paced away from late closer Irish Dream to win by six lengths in the Dakins Waste Winter Rewards.

He rated 1:55.6 for the 1980m and left driver Tim Williams wondering where the four-year-old’s ceiling might be.

“I think the penny has only really started to drop for him lately,” says Williams.

“He was always a talented horse and ran in good races as a two-year-old when he was a colt but he is a gelding now and seems to be concentrating much better.

“I think he is an open class horse in the making.”

So too is J T Boe, who Williams usually drives but had Nikita Burton on board on Friday when he too covered more ground than his rivals and was still too good in the Commodore Hotel Pace.

So who is better?

“At the moment J T Boe has the real grunt when you ask him to go whereas Tact Teva is very fast,” says Williams.

“They are two very good horses but J T Boe is going to be getting into a pretty tough grade soon.”

Williams says after a huge winter last year that set Team Telfer up for their premiership win and NZ record, this winter has had more of a rebuilding feel.

“But we have these really good horses winning now and I think we are set up nicely for the back end of the season.”

The big bucks in the Winter Rewards races were shared around nicely on Friday, with  Kyle Cameron claiming the first with Chester Gold before Andrew Faulks and Carter Dalgety combined with Aunty Deb to win the R40-44 pace with the daughter of Sky Major.

Jonny Cox was at his aggressive best training and driving Almighty to win the intermediate trot while father and son Michael and Wilson House combined to take out the last of the Rewards races with the well-bred Fusion Reactor, seeing them bookend the evening after winning the first with Vincent Reactress.